


Difficulty Level

by Alterius



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Bad Jokes, Ficlet Collection, First Kiss, Kiss of Life, M/M, Sexual Humor, Spitefic, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-08-21 15:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16579109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alterius/pseuds/Alterius
Summary: A collection of drabbles/ficlets/shorter stories for the relationship between Prompto and Noctis that aren't really related.Most recent: “What if you spilled milk in your sword pocket dimension thing?”





	1. Difficulty Level

**Author's Note:**

> This is just where I'm gonna be throwing the "smaller" Promptis things that don't really need their own fic. You're welcome to make requests, if you'd like to see more of something or something completely different.
> 
> Trigger warnings for this one are just sexual humor and really bad jokes.

Prompto is just minding his own business, like always. Anyone who knew him would tell you that he had never  _ not _ minded his own business a day in his life. Back at home, he had a certificate of sufficience in not being what Noctis calls “a second Ignis”. 

But not prying into people’s affairs came at a great cost, illustrated only by the silence being interrupted by Noct's vibrating phone. Prompto could tell from the very first sigh that Noctis had only one regret in that moment and that was agreeing to date Prompto Argentum.

“You know, it's so hard to date you.”

“Hey, man, I told you to pick Easy Mode,” he says, words punctuated by a laugh when Noctis replies to his text with only a single emoji that expresses his displeasure more accurately than any turn of phrase he could possibly come up with. 

“Yeah, okay, but what about Normal Mode means you have to take and caption brooding pictures of chocobos?”

“Uh, everything? If you dial down the difficulty, you'll just get regular pictures of chocobos.”

Noct fixes him with a glare that has Prompto biting his tongue in an effort to hold back his laughter and then, right before he takes a drink, he makes the mistake of asking, “What happens on Hard Mode?”

“Oh, you get a  _ different kind _ of chocobo for that one.”

Noct chokes on his water. 


	2. Flavor Of Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per usual this was _supposed_ to for Smoochtober's "Kiss Of Life" prompt, but I didn't get around to editing it and then further put it off. Beta'd by my lovely [fiance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lascivus/pseuds/Lascivus), as per usual.
> 
> Trigger warning for temporary character death on this one.

Why hadn't he gone with him?

Why hadn't he tried harder to stop him? Why hadn't he  _ tried _ at  _ all _ ? Why hadn’t he looked harder to find the  _ strength _ to save him from fulfilling this absolute  _ bullshit _ destiny that the Astrals had thrust upon him, like it was somehow his responsibility to make up for their mistakes?

The Astrals were nothing but frauds. People prayed to them for a miracle and what they were sent was a man—a normal man damned at birth to become a sacrifice for what they’d knowingly put into motion  _ centuries _ ago.

They cast Ardyn out; they condemned him. It had nothing to do with Noct, so  _ why _ in the fresh hell was he the one suffering for it? 

Oh,  _ right _ , because it was so much  _ easier _ for those that actually  _ were _ involved. It didn’t matter to the Astrals what happened to Noctis; he was just a lamb they were sending to slaughter so they wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of their actions and Prompto knew—he fucking  _ knew _ —that he’d never bend a knee to the Astrals again in his lifetime. 

Not like he was now, in front of his best friend.

He’d never bend a knee to the Astrals and thank them for what they never gave him, not like he’d bend his knee for his  _ king _ , the one who’d given them back the sun, the one who’d given them  _ everything  _ without an ounce of hesitation, the one who’d wept openly the “night” before for the life he was about to lose and the one he’d never had. 

Noctis was no willing piece of the puzzle that the Astrals had dyed and cut and Prompto would never forgive the Astrals for throwing away his life. 

If there’s sound, Prompto is deaf to it as he chokes out a laugh that borders on a sob; he can feel his heart breaking again, like it had the night before when Noctis had found the  _ strength _ to tell them everything they’d never known. 

Prompto is careful as he reaches up and wrenches the sword lodged in Noct’s chest from it. His friends make no move to stop him, but he hasn’t the energy to be thankful for it. All the hardships from the past day haven’t kept him from mourning for the duration of it—and yet still, he needs a moment more as he lays Noct out on the ground, cradles him gently in arms that had waited ten years to hold him again.

Ten years of separation—ten  _ fucking  _ years of that “distance makes the heart grow fonder”  _ bullshit _ —and now Noct was  _ gone _ . Noctis was gone and even at their last meeting, Prompto hadn’t had the balls to tell him about the feelings he’d been sitting on all these years, stubbornly ignoring because their  _ friendship  _ was what he was afraid of ruining. 

Why hadn’t he said something?

Why hadn’t he said something when Noctis had stepped into Hammerhead and Prompto had felt like the sun had finally risen over the horizon? Why hadn’t he said something instead of cracking some stupid joke about Noct’s appearance, how he’d expected him to stumble back home looking more like Rapunzel than their future king.

They’d joked that he could’ve used it to defeat Ardyn, that he could whip out his long, flowing locks and lasso Ardyn like something out of those cheesy western movies that Prompto liked so much, if only because of the sheer amount of chocobos in it. 

But now, no one was joking and if there was any sound at all, Prompto was deaf to it in the face of his best friend’s  _ corpse _ . He only knows that it takes him a moment to realize the only sound he can hear, of shaky intakes of breaths like there’s no air left in their lungs, belongs to him and not Ignis nor Gladio. 

The longer he looks at him, the more his emotions weigh down on him. Regret looms over him like a shadow, reminding him that he’d held himself back, that there could’ve been  _ more _ , that maybe things could’ve been  _ different _ if he’d opened up his mouth and just—

“Dude, I should've said it a long time ago. I should've told you when I still had time. I— I should’ve—”

Prompto’s cut off by the way his voice catches in his throat, shoulders shaking as tears start down his cheeks. He’s quickly losing sight of whatever the hell he was trying to say, but it doesn’t matter now. No amount of regrets would bring Noctis back. He could cry his weight in tears and the Astrals would still break open a bottle of wine to celebrate a job well done.

The silence is filled with a bitter, watery laugh and words overflow from his lips like a faucet filling a sink over the brim. 

“Should’a told you I loved you when you were still alive to shoot me down.”

He leans down, presses warm lips against colder ones, like he's hoping it'll  _ give him _ something like closure, but Prompto knows too well that he won't have that until he's at Noct's side again—and he has to help rebuild first. Like hell he'd come all this way just to die before he could finish what Noctis started.

“You want me to…”

He stops Gladio before he can finish, raises a hand to keep Gladio from lifting what was left of their king into his arms. It didn’t matter that Gladio was stronger—not to him. Noct was a familiar weight in his arms, as many times as he’d picked him up when his bad knee gave out on him, when aches and pains from a wound that Noctis never liked to talk about made moving around too difficult.

“Nah, I got him,” he says, but the familiar warmth has been tainted by sorrow that he hasn't felt in a long time. It's the same deep-seated melancholy that ate away at him while he came to terms with his parents’ death after the fall of Insomnia; it’s the same sadness that burrowed deep under his skin after Altissia, when he was busy blaming himself for not being able to do  _ anything _ but show up right at the end. 

Now more than ever, Prompto wishes he was the one who lost his sight. That he wouldn’t have to stare at the rising sun every morning after this one, knowing Noctis would never see it. 

“I got you, buddy,” he whispers, despite the tears that linger in his eyes. He loops one arm beneath Noct's knees and the other around his shoulders as he stands on shaky legs. “I got you…”

But he freezes when he hears a familiar voice, slow and slurred like all those early mornings where Ignis had drug its owner out of bed, though he wasn’t quite awake still. 

“Prom…?”

He nearly drops Noctis when he looks down, heart pounding in his chest at the sight of piercing blue eyes staring back at him, bleary as they reopen for the first time since he’d sat down on that godforsaken throne. 

“Noct?” 

Prompto's voice wobbles as he eases his friend back down, fearing his legs might give out and the two of them would tumble to the ground, destroying whatever fluke or lingering magic had given him more time. 

If not for Gladio, Prompto might’ve jumped to the assumption that he’d lost his mind, that grief had driven him to the edge of madness.

“Holy shit. Noct?” Gladio says and Noct offers them both a gentle smile, though confusion is set in his eyes as much as relief is set in Prompto's. 

Noct barely manages to nod before Prompto swoops in, claiming lips more full of life than they had been but a moment ago, fingers curled into the ruined jacket, where they stay when Prompto finally pulls away. 

When he meets Noct's gaze, he finds shock written across his face in a mouth that's fallen open, eyebrows arched upwards. 

“Wow,” Noct says before a smile spreads across his face, weak as it is. “I should die more often if that's what I get for it.”

And Prompto can't help but laugh, even when it shakes like the rest of him does, even when his stomach churns from a diet comprised of more anxiety than food these past few hours, even as more tears start down his cheeks. 

“Don't even joke, man.”


	3. The Armiger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto has a question about the Armiger and Noct... doesn't really have an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating for WIP week because this might be a fic collection, but it's also an ongoing work and I haven't updated in a while. This was kind of a spitefic I wrote a while back and just hadn't edited yet, so here you go, guys. Beta'd by my [fiance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lascivus/pseuds/Lascivus), as usual.

“What if you spilled milk in your sword pocket dimension thing?”

Words like those are enough to make Noctis look up from his video game. Black brows furrow as his head swivels to look from the screen to his best friend. Unlike him, Prompto looks serious, tapping his chin with his index finger as if there were any other thoughts swarming in his empty head.

“... What?”

“Serious question, dude. How would you clean it up?” Prompto asks and for a second, Noctis wonders if he might pull out a notebook and start jotting down his answers like some kind of eccentric scientist, hellbent on defining the Caelum line’s crystal-gifted magic.

That’s ignoring that this kind of information could probably be sold to the tabloids for a small fortune—one that Prompto probably needed, in all honesty.

“I, uh…”

It was too bad that he just _didn’t have_ an answer. But it doesn’t matter if he has an answer or not because being _clueless_ just isn’t enough to dissuade Prompto.

“Do you think it’d spoil in there?” he continues, clearly still thinking about this milk that Noct doesn’t even _drink_ unless it’s either chocolate or in something Ignis is cooking. “Wait, could we use it to keep our chips from going stale?”

“I dunno! I’ve never tried it!”

Now, something like that, blurted out by a prince cornered by his best friend, who’s only seeking answers that Noctis doesn’t have… Something like that might’ve been reasonable to someone else, but to Prompto, it verged on being heresy.

“ _Dude_ , you’ve _never_ tried storing food in your inter-dimensional extra pants pocket?”

It’s a silly question, without a doubt, because _of course_ he hasn’t. Prompto’s probably the only person he knows that would even consider the possibility of placing a bag of chips or milk amidst a collection of weapons.

And the more time that passes, the less he has to either figure out an answer or find a way to derail this conversation into something more manageable.

“It’s… It’s called the _Armiger_ , Prom.”   


Violet blue eyes scrunch up as he speaks, brows furrowing like he’s just said something foreign, like he’s just spoken a single sentence in a language neither of them have heard. And with the way he cocks his head to the side before he speaks, Noctis is more expecting a chocobo-typical _kweh_ than another question: “Isn’t that when you turn into a badass with the floating swords and what not?”

“Well, _yeah_ , but—” Noct cuts himself off, rearing his head back in offence as the rest of the words register. “ _Hey_ , what do you mean I _turn into_ a badass?”

There’s a laugh, awkward as it might be, and he knows the subject change is coming before it actually does and _oh_ , Noct’s not done yet. He’s _definitely_ grilling Prompto over that one later.

“You can’t call it the Armiger if the cool thing’s also the Armiger, dude,” he says and Noct can’t be prepared for what Prompto says next, even if he’s fairly accustomed to Prompto’s brand of tomfoolery at this point.

“We need a new name for it. We’ll call it… The NESPoDiT.”

Noct can’t help it. He really _can’t_ help it. Instead of eloquently highlighting his confusion like the well-groomed prince he is and asking for _elaboration_ on what is arguably the most _ridiculous_ name he’s ever heard—if it could be called such—he finds himself asking, “What the fuck, Prom?”

“Noct’s Endless Sword Pocket Dimension Thing! It’s _perfect_!”

“Oh, _hell_ no.”

But Prompto’s not listening. He’s not listening because more than anything, he’s excitable, with a curiosity to match a baby chocobo’s.

“Wait, _is it_ endless?”

“ _Prompto_.”

“What? I'm asking the real questions here, Noct.”

“And I have no idea,” Noct admits, though he’s unsure if that’s a failure on his part or if these things were simply not known. Hell, the only thing he was learning from this situation was there was no Lucis Caelum before him that had a friend like Prompto.

“So you don't know if you can, like, safely carry groceries in there?” he asks. Noct narrows his eyes at too-innocent violet blue.

“Prom, are you trying to use me as a pack mule?”

“Uh, no? Just trying to figure out how many bags with bags in them I’m gonna have to carry when all our chips go stale, since your Anti-Expiration Naruto Scroll _might_ not work as intended!”

“You don’t even _like_ Naruto!”

Laughter erupts from the blond, though Noct is left pouting where he sits on the couch, staring at his friend and hoping—praying, even—that he _might_ be able to turn this into an anime binge instead of whatever scheme Prompto was cooking up to test out his theories.

“... So you got any milk?”


End file.
